The issue with that statement is that, now that Galactic Wonders unlocks a whopping 8 megastructures, one of which provides 1k minerals/month and another of which is better than Grasp the Void, Eternal Vigilance, and Galactic Force Projection combined (no, I am never letting this go, at least not until the aforementioned APs get a buff/rework), there is never a reason not to take it. Yes, it is still technically a "choice" to take Galactic Wonders, but the choice between getting 1 million dollars with no strings attached or getting a swift kick to the groin by Walker Texas Ranger is still technically a choice, but one of the choices is obviously better 100% of the time. Since this is the case, how is taking Galactic Wonders not essentially mandatory now?
It is obviously not mandatory (an aggressive warmonger style can ignore it and just funnel its alloys into more ships), but certain very good. Is it *too* good right now? Yeah, probably a bit too much bang-per-perk.
...but that perk being "a bit OP" doesn't mean that Habitats are bad.
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I'm not saying these are the only possible solutions. They are just the most obvious.
@GAGA Extrem I am very curious as to your thoughts on this.
Eh, I'd go with keeping them in one perk, but force the player to unlock specific mega structures with tier 5 or 6 techs. One (Ringworld?) would be free by default.
Just curious, but how would you get an ecumenopolis and a machine world?
Also, kind of off topic, but are Habitats supposed to be that far away from planets? I just build my first in 2.2 and it ended up outside the system border, since I wanted to build it around the outermost planet in the system.
Edit: After the Habitat has finished construction, it is where it is supposed to be - over the planet. Maybe only a bug while it is under construction?
Conquest would be one way, I guess?
The Habitat placement thingy during construction is probably a bug.
Maybe in your games pop growth is an issue, but I've never really had an issue where my pops weren't growing fast enough. My issue is generally that my production is too small to support my population which tends to explode, so for my inward perfection agrarian idyll build, I don't really think that I'll need the additional manufacturing provided by "outsourcing" it to habitats. Generally my early game planets become the manufacturing core and I expand into more planets to fill the manufacturing needs instead of expanding manufacturing when I don't have nearly enough raw materials to be gluttonous like that.
I don't want to say that you are doing it wrong, but there isn't really such a thing as "too many pops", especially during the early game. You'll need to find a good job balance between low and mid strata jobs to make sure that you can support the population and have enough surplus income to afford building & district construction, but that's pretty much it.
My suggestion would be to focus a bit more on resource boosting techs to make the economy more efficient. In that case Habitats are also useful, because they allow you to use the 3 resource boosting buildings on your planets to improve raw resource output, which means you have more flexibility for pop employment options.
I used Arcology and habitats as a major part of my militarization.
Once you get into the 75+ pop range, you're going to want to start using the buildings that give the +10 jobs anyway and those tend to be the higher strata buildings (generally). I only used Ecumenopolis because at that point I had demolished so many resource districts for the housing growth on my capital world that it only required a small hit. So to keep away from mass unemployment/crime, the choice is a culture planet or an alloy planet - and if you're going alloy planet then Arcology is the more efficient way to do it.
I think this comes down to player philosophy. Let me give you an examples to contrast this idea: The Agrarian Idyll play style. A weird hybrid that is tall and un-tall at the same time.
Instead of cramping as many pops as possible on your planets, you focus on maximizing resource output and efficiency. You don't build a single city and instead utilize as many deposits as possible. The planet will have a lower population cap, which means there is less incentive to upgrade your production buildings. This in turn saves resources (by having lower upkeep & less refinement buildings). A part of these preserved resources are reinvested into Habitats (and pay for their alloy upkeep). The Habitats in turn provide more building slots, so now you can move more buildings off your planets to allow maximizing resource output further.
You still want to get 75 pop on every planet, so on very small planets you might need a luxury residence or two. On the flip side, large planets will probably have so many pops that you'll need to upgrade a few buildings, but ultimately you will maintain a low footprint for special resource upkeep. Later down the line when your planets start to reach maximum capacity, you can use a Ringworld to resettle excess population.
Also, I can't imagine that Habitats have their own deposits.
